Same Difference
by Jocelyn
Summary: Spoilers for Thor: TDW. An AU short story where complications arise during the escape from Asgard. Thor throwing Loki from the Svartalf ship causes Loki to have a massive flashback to his fall from the Bifrost.
1. Chapter 1

A short story follows in response to a prompt in LJ's Norsekink:

So, you know that scene in the movie where Thor throws Loki out of the flying ship without any warning? The one that's played for laughs?

Instead of Loki just brushing it off, he is heavily triggered by such a sudden and unexpected fall. He flashes back to falling from the Bifrost and falling through space (where word of god says he went through tons of shit before the events of the Avengers). When Thor and Jane join them, they don't find a Loki ready with a quip, willing to lead them to Svartalfheim. They find a Loki who is either going through a full blown panic attack or a Loki who is almost catatonic while reliving that moment.

To make things even worse, all of Asgard is still on their tails.

* * *

**Same Difference**

Thor couldn't deny a bit of vindictive glee at Loki's shout of alarm, giving way to a cry of panic as his brother was propelled out of the ship into the open air. _I thought you liked tricks! _

On the floor behind him, Jane was shaking her head, trying to pull herself upright. "Don't worry, just hold onto me," he urged as he scooped her into his arms.

Groggy as she was, she sucked in her breath and squeaked, "Wha - what're you - " when she saw them heading for the open door.

"Another ship awaits us," he assured her. Rather than give her time to process it and become truly afraid, he jumped. In the time it took her to gasp, they plunged down onto the deck of Fandral's skiff.

Jane blew out her breath little puffs against his neck as she looked up at the now-abandoned Svartalf vessel, still pursued by Asgard's sentries. Fandral was laughing as he piloted the skiff for the cover of the mountains. "I see your time in the dungeons has made you no less graceful, Loki!"

"Let's go!" Thor ordered, glancing briefly at his stunned brother on the deck before turning to settle Jane on a seat.

But then... "Uh, Thor?"

He looked back. At the tiller, Fandral was frowning. Loki had not risen, nor even moved from where he'd landed by the look of him, slumped on the deck. "Loki? No, stay," he cautioned Jane, feeling her still unsteady from the Aether's power. She sat back against the seat, and he turned his attention to his brother.

"I didn't think he'd hit his head, though he landed rather hard," said Fandral apologetically.

"Probably just winded. Come on, Loki, we - " Thor went to shake him and froze. He'd expected to find Loki limp, struggling to get his breath back if he'd come down wrong, but his brother's body was utterly rigid, and shaking so hard and rapidly that he seemed to be vibrating. "Loki!"

The skiff lurched as one of the other sentries worked out their gambit and returned; Fandral swore and veered them hard into the mountains. Thor shook Loki's shoulders furiously. If it had been anyone else, he would have been worried. How like Loki to insist on playing ridiculous games at a moment like this. "Stop this stupidity! You agreed! Get up and help us!"

"Thor - " Jane's question broke off in another gasp as they swerved again, and when Thor looked back, her eyes were clouded with the Aether's power. _Damn, damn, damn!_

Why had he ever thought Loki was trustworthy in anything? Especially with Frigga gone - it was like a white-hot lance of his own lightning to remember that - what reason had the God of Lies to aid them or do anything other than make their aim as difficult as possible. He shook Loki harder and slapped him full in the face. What was the trickster doing? Just dissembling or was this some magic in progress in the glazed, vacant eyes and stiffened limbs?

"Our mother trusted you!" he bellowed. Loki paid it no notice.

* * *

The universe was awash in red and black... dark and stifling. Jane drifted in the dark with no control over her limbs and no purchase for her feet. Time - time had no meaning, nor space... she was on the ship but drifting in the red at the same time - _here-there-future-past-present-up-down-air-void_ - she would have screamed but there was no air in her lungs. No air anywhere. The only reason she didn't die was because she couldn't. The red sustained its host until the host herself burned away.

Driven by the dark elf's rage, it consumed and blotted out the stars. Secreted away by the Aesir, it rested and waited. Before-after-now-then blended into each other. Worlds drifted past, light and dark. Stars were born, stars died...

Something drew her human gaze - something familiar... no, some_one._ Plunging through the void, drifting and falling as worlds pushed and pulled him, never enough to bring him back to solid ground... the void was too vast. His limbs flailed helplessly, lips parted in a silent scream of misery and terror, eyes squeezed shut against the torment of falling... falling... falling...

_You're..._

Then and now converged again and she blinked through the red. A red cloak, golden hair, sweaty and dusty, angry shouts - but in his grasp, that same face, that same horror -

_Falling..._

Jane ripped free of the Aether's sight with a shriek and tumbled off the seat. She vaguely heard Fandral exclaim in surprise and Thor's meaningless protest, but she was already up on her hands and knees, scuffing her palms on the wood as she scrambled towards them. "Stop, Thor! Stop it!"

Thor stared at her, releasing Loki in confusion, but Loki didn't react. Jane had no doubt he had no idea where he was. Thor caught her as she unbalanced into him when Fandral swerved them again to dodge their pursuers; Loki was so stiff he stayed upright, seated against the railing where Thor had pulled him.

"My lady, I wouldn't," Fandral warned, but she ignored him and seized the sides of Thor's brother's face.

"Loki," she said urgently. "Listen to me. You're not in the void."

"What?!" she heard Thor blurt.

"You're not falling, you're not, we're on a ship - " They lurched when another shot grazed them; she inadvertently dug her fingernails into his temple. No reaction. Damn it. "We have to land!" She finally gave a serious look to their surroundings: forest and mountains. "Can you lose them long enough? Thor, we need to land; he's having a flashback!"

Thor looked completely confused, but gave Fandral a helpless shrug. "This path of his is in the mountains; that's all I know. If he can't guide us there..."

They lurched again, and Fandral laughed. "Let us stop playing the wild goose, then! Hold on tight!"

Jane grabbed railing with one hand and wrapped her free arm around Loki to brace him. Thor wrapped his arms around both of them as the ship went into a dizzying dive. She nearly lost the contents of her stomach and couldn't guess what that maneuver did to Loki. She hoped he wasn't aware of it. Trusting Thor to keep them from flying overboard or sliding into a wall, she let go of her own hand hold and pulled Loki's face into her shoulder. "It's okay, it's okay," she chanted into his ear. "It's o - GOD!"

They swerved around a peak and went straight at a cliff face, and she couldn't hold back a scream, but they spun violently and dropped once more with a thud... coming to rest between massive, carved crags of rock up against a solid stone wall. In the sudden silence, over her thudding heart and ragged breathing, she could hear the engines of their pursuer as it came shrieking around the mountain after them and passed on. Fandral jumped deftly onto the rocks and peered between them. "They think we dove into the trees. Perfect. We should be concealed enough for a while." He wrinkled his nose and jumped back onto the deck. "What ails him?"

Jane sat back to examine Loki and found him still unresponsive: stiff, unblinking, a fine tremor in his muscles. "He fell. He fell before, through space, and you just pushed him out of a ship!"

_TBC..._


	2. Chapter 2

_Note: As you can gather, this chapter contains a fair amount of dialogue directly from the film itself. The conversation wouldn't be directly verbatim, but nor would it be completely eliminated in this AU. Keeping our heroes in character while dealing with this situation was... a challenge._

* * *

Thor's blood ran cold as he realized Jane's meaning. He'd had more than his share of foul dreams of that moment, Loki letting go of Gungnir's haft to fall... fall away into the void, to a fate they'd all been sure was death.

But it hadn't been death, and Loki was alive. So... until then... how long had he fallen?

"How do you know?" he breathed. He'd never spoken of it to her.

Jane shrugged and rubbed her eyes. "Dunno. The Aether... it's making me see things. The future, what Malekith wants to do. But the past too - the universe forming. It's... time isn't the same. Or it is, it's all the same. It all runs together, and I saw him falling. Haven't you  
thousand-year-old gods got a word for post-traumatic stress?!" she demanded, looking from Thor to Fandral and back. "All these wars you  
fought, you never get things like flashbacks?"

_Post-traumatic stress... flashbacks…_ They were words whose meaning he could grasp, but they seemed to rattle around in his head. It was Fandral who put it together first. "You mean the war fetters." Jane frowned, and he sighed, sitting down next to them. "The bindings of memory that can fall on a warrior."

She nodded. "It isn't just caused by war, but yeah, that's the idea." She began talking to Loki again, patting his hands, tapping his cheek,  
trying to draw his attention back to her without success.

Thor's own memories drifted to two children terrified of water after their sister drowned in a tragic accident. Volstagg and his wife had spent  
many hours with them and the healers, working to ease those fears. A promising young warrior Thor's age had lost his father to an explosion of a kiln. The poor craftsman had burned to death as his son tried to reach him. The memories had overtaken him for years, halting his training. Thor and a few of his friends had called the lad a coward in the ignorance of youth, and got themselves punished and subjected to tongue-lashings from the healers, the superiors, and Odin himself. He remained deeply ashamed of it. Valdi had recovered and gone on to be a valiant defender of Asgard, a trusted comrade.

_There is no warrior so brave that memories may not cause him to wake in a cold sweat. There is no man or woman or child of any realm immune to the sight of innocent blood or the sound of terror._ Thor had seen enough now in his lifetime to quietly admit it held for himself. After the berserker rage, the adrenaline of battle had passed and quiet came down hard and heavy, that was when he struggled to stay in the here and now. It was one more reason he'd preferred more boisterous friends, to keep the quiet at bay.

That had eased at last during those few first days with Jane, and he'd thought perhaps his mother and others who spoke of "peace and quiet" as if they were compatible were not wrong after all. Sorrow had hung over him in the silence after Loki's fall, and again in the respites between battles to bring the realm to order after New York, but although grief and rage and fear still shimmered in his memories, he no longer frantically avoided quiet. His friends had noticed, but even thoughtful Sif and observant Hogun had never realized why.

_And how did it never occur to me that Loki might suffer such an affliction? _ He shifted to Jane's side and put his hands to Loki's face, trying to draw his brother's haunted gaze back to the present. "Loki. Brother, forgive me, I didn't realize. I should have warned you. You're safe,  
you will not fall again!"

He couldn't be sure whether Loki even heard him. He exchanged a frustrated look with Fandral, but then Jane shifted, reaching over the low wall of the boat to the cliff face next to them. She scraped her fingers over the stone until she had a handful of loose rock and soil. That she scrubbed against Loki's balled fists - his breath caught.

Thor looked at his face and saw him blink. "We're on the ground, Loki," Jane said softly, taking his hands as they relaxed and guiding them up to feel the stone. "It's okay. See? Feel that, we're on the ground."

Loki's chin snapped up, his gaze went from blank to crazed, and Thor dove for Jane as green magic flashed around them. Fandral seized Loki, shouting, "Easy, man, easy! Calm down!"

But by the time Thor looked over his shoulder, Loki's eyes were focused, and he was pushing Fandral away. "Then stop shaking my head off my shoulders! Where are we? Did you get us lost?"

"You're the one supposed to be navigating, remember?" Fandral retorted.

Thor scrambled to his feet, intending to call Fandral to order and ask if Loki was all right, but felt Jane tugging at his arm. She shook her head urgently at him. Fortunately, Loki's attention was elsewhere. He growled something obscene and grabbed the tiller, shoving Fandral out of his way. "Make yourself useful and keep our friends busy."

Their abrupt takeoff sent Thor and Jane back onto the deck in a heap, and they'd no sooner circled their mountain hideout than Thor spotted the pursuing skiff wheeling around over the forest to come back. "Loki!"

"Leave them to me," Fandral ordered, going for a guide line. Still regaining altitude and speed, the sentry was on them fast. "Good luck, friends. For Asgard!" With a bellow of challenging laughter, Fandral was gone, in the space of a few heartbeats, the other skiff was veering off with Thor's friend at the helm.

Thor braced Jane with his arm as they accelerated straight at another peak. "Loki!"

"If it was easy, everyone would do it!" Loki's voice had that old, familiar mockery in it, but since he wasn't slowing down, it wasn't at all reassuring.

"Are you mad?!"

"Possibly," Loki informed him as they plunged into a cave barely wide enough for the skiff. Thor was still debating whether to just keep Jane shielded and hope for the best or try to wrestle the lunatic away from the tiller when they exploded into a different atmosphere. "Ta-daa!"

Either the journey or the Aether's energy was too much for Jane, and she sagged against Thor's side again. When he looked up from settling her beneath a blanket, Loki was watching them. "Are you all right?"

"Fine." Loki tsk'd at the dozing Jane. "She'll die, you know. From the Aether or from mortal age. Blink and she'll be gone. You'll never be ready."

Thor opened his mouth to retort, then caught himself and sighed. "I'm sorry." Loki blinked. "For failing to warn you we'd have to jump."

There was _something_ in Loki's eyes, but in an instant it was gone, and Loki smirked. "You lied to me. I'm impressed."

"I didn't realize you were war fettered."

Definitely the wrong thing to say. Loki's eyes flashed, and his teeth bared. "So _merciful_. What happened on Earth to turn you so soft?"

Thor gritted his teeth against the lance of anxiety that went through his chest at that. Did Loki think he was the only one haunted by that dark hour on the bridge? Three years, and still... he remembered Loki's eyes, glassy and blank. He searched for what to say that their mother would not have disapproved. At last, he said quietly, "It was that woman. A beautiful, kind, and clever lady of Midgard, who in but a few days stole my heart and has never given it back."

The sneer faded a little, but Loki's words were so matter-of-fact that it made little difference. "This day, the next, a hundred years. It's a heartbeat. The only woman whose love you prize will be snatched from you."

"And will that satisfy you?" Thor growled. Why had he thought it possible to appeal to Loki's heart?

"Satisfaction is not in my nature."

"Surrender is not in mine."

The sneer was back full force. "The son of Odin."

He was going to punch that sneer off the trickster's face. "No, not just of Odin. Do you think you alone were loved by Mother? You had her tricks but I had her trust!"

"_Trust_? Was that her last expression before you let her die?"

How dare he?! Thor didn't even realize he was moving until they were nose to nose. "What help were you in that cell?"

"Who put me there? Who put me there?!"

"You know damn well who!" He had one hand under Loki's chin, the other drawing back to swing - and caught himself. _Damn it. _He let go. "She wouldn't want us to fight."

Loki raised his eyebrows. "Well, she wouldn't exactly be shocked."

Flashbacks, Jane called them, when memory overtook awareness and the past became the present. It was so now, but not in a bad way. Loki with that quirky grin, all sly humor and wit, Thor trying and utterly unable to keep his mouth from forming a smile. They could be at a feast, Volstagg and Fandral sniggering into their ale, Sif rolling her eyes, Hogun simply ignoring their banter and talking so seriously with Tyr and Skadi - until someone (usually Loki) started harassing them. Sigyn in the corner with a book ignoring the men - except when Loki came to talk to her about whatever she was reading. Odin never stayed long; Eir and the scholars would gravitate away from the younger warriors, talking with Frigga...

_Frigga. _It washed over him anew, knowing yet another reason those days were utterly gone.

Here they were. "I wish I could trust you," he muttered.

"Trust my rage," Loki answered quietly.

Thor breathed in deep, trying to ignore the dry, sterile atmosphere of Svartalfheim. He looked back at his brother. "I know I may lose her. But I lost you." Loki frowned, and he smiled. "And you came back."

"So I did. Are you glad of me?"

"Yes." He didn't hesitate to answer, but this time he was watching for and caught that flicker of surprise before Loki's gaze darted away. _I thought you liked tricks, brother. _"I missed you too."

But he let the matter drop. Perhaps when all this was over, there would be time for them to talk.

_TBC..._


	3. Chapter 3

"If Thor doesn't stop creeping me out, I'm gonna Tase him!" Darcy threatened on the third day after the convergence.

How that damn Taser hadn't been confiscated at customs, Jane would have loved to know – and wished she'd thought of "turning it in" at the time. "Leave him alone, Darcy, he's not bothering anyone."

"And that's the problem. He's Thor! God of bang-bang-boom and flashy things and bellowing! It has to be violating a Norse commandment to be this quiet; he's making me nervous!"

"GOD! You – intern – Ewan – whatever your name is, take Darcy for a walk, go sex her up, I don't care, just get her out of here!" Erik spewed a mouthful of ginger ale – luckily in the opposite direction of the laptops – and Darcy was still sputtering as Jane shoved her jacket into her arms and physically propelled her into Ian's arms, and Ian hauled her out the door. There, she could remember his name.

The object of the debate was standing quietly on the balcony of their London apartment, where he'd spent a lot of time since coming back to Earth. He smiled as Jane came out, the same as he always did, but there was no missing the shadow hanging over him. She hadn't raised the subject, and had threatened to duct tape Darcy's mouth if she tried. Jane was hoping Thor would decide on his own to talk to her about it, but then again, maybe he worried that nobody on Earth would have it in them to sympathize with what he was feeling.

Well, nothing ventured…

"I didn't get a chance to say it before," she murmured, slipping a hand into his. "I really am sorry. About your brother." If her throat tightened up, she told herself it was for the way Thor's eyes filled, not because she felt bad for a supervillain.

_An Asgardian who fell through the void for god-knows-how-long and had flashbacks and stabbed a dark elf monster through the back and saved Thor's life and died in his arms – _

He'd hurt people. He'd killed people. She shouldn't feel sorry for him… shouldn't wonder if maybe he hadn't deserved to die that way…

"How did you know?" Thor asked. "About what happened on the ship? Have you… you've not seen war or battle."

"No, not personally," she said slowly. "But… flashbacks… they happen when someone's been traumatized." She glanced at the doors and lowered her voice a little more. "Erik," she explained. "After the Tesseract and New York. What happened to his mind… what… Loki did. He has trouble." _At least he's started wearing pants regularly again._ "Everyone reacts differently to PTSD, but it was… similar, that time. I recognized it. That was all." She gazed out over the gray London skyline. "You said it's called the war fetters in Asgard?" She thought she remembered that from brushing up on her Norse mythology.

Thor nodded. "It's said there is no greater binding than in one's own mind. It is known best in war, though as you've said, it can fall on anyone who witnesses horror. I've seen it enough; I should have recognized it sooner." He bent over the stone railing. "I should have known better than to throw him anywhere! I saw him fall the first time!"

Jane's stomach lurched. "Oh god… what d'you mean?"

He told her. Three-plus years and sleepless nights and SHIELD breathing down her neck and aliens rampaging in New York and hope and despair and being possessed by some ancient mindless superpower later, she finally heard the whole story. As excuses went it… was pretty foolproof. As stories went, it might make for an epic someday, but all she wanted to do was sob for him.

Worse… if anyone ever asked her if she felt sorry for Loki, she'd have to lie. She was a terrible liar.

_He fell. He fell of the bridge and kept on falling for God knows how long. He was so scared… _Not to live, not to die, just fall and fall… it had been easy to hate him, to imagine he was some twisted caricature of one-dimensional evil. He hadn't exactly tried to dispel that reputation either; she'd seen it in his smug grin when she'd met him.

Until he fell from the ship, and his mind fell into the void. He'd certainly never said anything to her after that, and Jane wasn't surprised that he'd picked a fight when Thor had tried. Erik didn't like to talk about those moments either, when his face went white and his eyes went blank, staring at some horror that Jane couldn't see. Horrors that were Loki's fault, and yet… Loki was "unbalanced" as Thor sometimes put it.

_After falling through the void between worlds… who would be balanced?_ Where had he landed? Erik had once admitted that he and Agent Barton and Loki had all hated the Chitauri, which was… odd, if they'd been Loki's allies. If not… nothing made sense. Nothing was simple. And now Loki was dead, and none of them would ever really have answers.

Thor had at least filled in a few of the gaps from how it had all begun. "I'd be amazed if you didn't have flashbacks after all that," she finally said, feeling completely drained just hearing the story.

Thor smiled at her, but there was something bleak in it. "Who said I don't?" She wrapped an arm around his neck and pressed her forehead to his. "I see him fall... the despair, before he reappeared on Earth, I used to wake wishing, praying that somehow he was alive. Then he was, but mad, and hundreds died. I hated myself for missing him. For wanting to find a way..."

"It's not wrong," Jane told him. She sat back and looked him in the eye. "Erik's sorry too, you know. Not, well, not for him, no, but for you. He doesn't blame you for missing him." That part wasn't a lie. So if she said that she didn't blame Thor either, well, it was true.

Lunatic or not, tyrant or not, Loki had grown up with Thor, and given his life to save him only a few days after they'd lost their mother.

Thinking too much about it all felt like falling off a cliff herself, one that led to her throat being too tight to speak and some spiral of panic and anxiety and deep, soul-crushing sadness, a beautiful queen stabbed to death in front of her family, a universe of worlds united by one cosmic anomaly and all darkened at the same time. And behind it all, a whisper: _It was all your fault._

She had to wrench her mind away from it all. She was relieved that Thor was still thinking of Erik. "That's generous of him. I'm glad to find him healing."

She grinned. "Erik'll tell you he's set in his ways, but he's not. He always adapts, no matter how strange the world gets."

"As you do," he pointed out, smiling more easily. "To both of your credit."

With a sheepish shrug, Jane replied, "What can I say, it's in our nature. We're scientists. That's why we do what we do."

It was just a trite attempt at modesty, but from the way Thor's eyes widened, you'd have thought she'd said something outrageous. "Thor? What? What?!" She could actually feel his pulse speeding up under her hand. "What's wrong?"

Maybe it was a flashback of his own, but... staring at nothing, his mouth half-hanging open, Thor suddenly smiled. He blinked as she cautiously shook him, then grinned. "Nothing." It was the brightest smile she'd seen from him since New Mexico.

* * *

When the Allfather stirred from a full seven days of Odinsleep, Loki knew he shouldn't linger to see the look on his face. But, naturally, he couldn't resist. The king of Asgard had slumbered under the simplest concealment spell while the oblivious guards and servants went on following the "king's" orders from the throne. Odin had emerged to much sputtering, then bellowing when he worked it all out.

Confusion followed, as Odin found himself not reclaiming a realm from under a tyrant's thumb nor fallen to mayhem. Rather, Asgard had been reassured by their king's calm directions to rebuild and heal, and no one had ever suspected there was an imposter upon the throne. The old fool bellowed anyway. Of course, he would never admit to himself that Loki had ruled well or wisely.

Thor was sent for, and stoically endured Odin's ranting and demands of how he could have failed to detect the pretender. Loki was glad to be a gadfly on the wall for that conversation. Thor explained, "You - I mean, he offered me the throne, Father! Neither one of us would have imagined he'd have done that, nor that he would have expected me to refuse it!"

Odin paced like a caged lion, teeth bared, denied its prey. Thor, to Loki's surprise, was utterly still. The thunderer betrayed little frustration and no anger at all. That was... a bit disappointing. A tantrum was more entertaining, though at least Loki didn't have to worry about dodging thrown debris. It was almost as if he...

"Who knows that I was asleep?"

"None save the chamber servants who were there when you awoke, and Sif and the Warriors Three when you sent them for me. All have sworn silence, and I've ordered a report of all events since my, er, initial departure. The scribes will not think it out of the ordinary."  
Odin growled and stalked around the table, glaring at the scrolls and tablets already assembled. "How long will we have to labor to undo all his schemes in the realm now?"

"From all the accounts, Father, his commands were - "

The growl Thor got in response sent Loki's mind back to the observatory on the day of that ill-fated sojourn to Jotunheim. "Do NOT speak of him as anything other than a traitor and usurper!" Oh, what a put-upon sigh. When had Thor started acting so much like Frigg - _oh._ Loki winced inwardly. So that was it. _Damn._ It took far too much of the fun out of it.

So he didn't bother to linger, even as Odin was going almost purple with rage and in danger of popping a few blood vessels in response to Thor's quiet, repeated refusal to denounce Loki entirely. "He saved my life. And Jane's. We could not have defeated Malekith without him."

Loki retreated from the room and decided he definitely had no further cause to stick around. Odin was clever enough not to raise a hue and cry about an imposter having held the throne for over a week, but there would be a search. And there would be no Frigga to keep Loki from the axe this time around, if he was caught. No reason at all to stay or ever return.

Slipping into the bowels of the kitchens in the guise of a servant, Loki made for the entrance to another path out of Asgard, one that would lead to Vanaheim, and from there, he could make his way wherever he wished.

He hadn't expected to encounter anyone but servants down here, so he was unprepared for the cloaked figure who burst out of the shadows. Startled from his own illusion, he found himself face-to-face with Thor. Loki promptly cast a duplicate of himself and tried to slip away, only to have Thor spin around and seize him before he'd gone two feet. Shoving Loki against the wall, his brother informed him, "Yes."

Loki stared. "What?"

To his astonishment, Thor smiled. "I am - at last - not going to fall for that. And I've been recalling some of the mysterious tunnels you used to go on about. One that you claimed led to Vanaheim from the scullery."

_Oops._ "I'm impressed. You can be taught. Not just to lie but to dissemble." Thor frowned, but when Loki shifted to get the bricks out of his back, his grip tightened. No chance of a quick magical shift or illusion to break away. "In Svartalfheim. Your performance over me. I really thought you were grieving."

"Oh." Thor's eyes dropped for a moment, and he admitted, "I was. I thought you dead yet again, and mourned you yet again, but then I remembered."

"Remembered what?"

"That this is you." Thor released his grip on Loki's arms, leading Loki to realize that there must be guards waiting. Perhaps the passage itself was sealed off. He sighed. This would make it more complicated. Usually Loki wouldn't mind a complicated trap to escape, but at the moment he was rather weary of brawls. "I remembered even before Father called me home with news of your latest escapade. You could have plunged Asgard into chaos."

"That's what I do. Haven't you realized it yet?" He meant it to goad Thor, but it didn't. And Thor didn't call for Loki to be clapped in irons, only stood there with that strange smile, as if he were genuinely glad to see him. And again, it reminded Loki of... "Well? Shouldn't you be dragging me back to the dungeons?" he blurted when he could bear no more.

Thor shook his head. Loki blinked. "No." He stepped from Loki's path, leaving the way clear for Loki to leap for the passage. Thor? Set an ambush? Surely not. But when Loki stood there for too long, staring stupidly, he gestured in invitation. "You came for one of your secret paths out of Asgard. If you mean to flee the Allfather's wrath, you're not wrong," he added with a wry twist of his mouth. "He is less pleased than I to learn we've been had by the God of Mischief once more."

"Did the brawl with Malekith addle your wits?" Loki demanded. "You can't just let me escape!"

Thor shrugged. "Apparently, I can, because that's what I'm doing. I owe you my life, Jane's and the Nine Realms; I've no intention of forgetting that. And Father may be too outraged to admit it, but I shall: you ruled Asgard wisely." He gestured again to the passage. "So if it's freedom you desire now, you have it."

Wondering if Thor was the one being impersonated now, Loki mused, "You've become very cavalier about committing treason."

"Not treason. Discretion. The Allfather knows my bent of mind, yet he put me in command of the search for you." Thor's eyes sparkled at the astonishment that Loki couldn't keep from his face, but then they narrowed, and he took a step closer. "If you mean to do harm to Asgard, Midgard, or anyone, I'll stop you just as I did before. And I'll have no discretion if you court punishment again. Bear that in mind when you decide to unleash chaos."

"Do you really think I'll ever turn down the chance for that?"

"I don't know. You complained of my shadow, of Odin's favor. Asgard's narrow minds towards magic. Perhaps away from all this, you'll find you can be satisfied after all."

"That's Frigga talking," Loki sneered.

Thor raised his eyebrows. "Thank you."

_Damn you!_ "Do you truly think you can _change_ me, Odinson?"

"No. If I did, I wouldn't let you go." Loki kept a wary eye on him as he went past, but Thor merely watched him. "Take care of yourself."

"You'll be dispatched to hunt for me," Loki pointed out.

"I will be glad if I find you well."

Loki threw up his hands. "He'll order you to capture me, not inquire after my health."

"And what you do in the interim will determine how we next meet," Thor retorted, finally showing crossness. Then he sighed and ambled into the gateway, peering into the darkness over Loki's shoulder.

"Are you so sure we'll meet again, then?"

Why did he suddenly look and sound so much like Frigga? "I hope so. But if not, then I hope this is one goodbye to you that doesn't result in flashbacks. Nightmares," he clarified, seeing Loki's confused expression. Then he smiled. "Waking dreams. Flashback is the human term for it."

_Oh. So that was how she knew..._ "I'm surprised she'll ever sleep again after what she saw here."

"Humans are stronger than you'll ever know. My friend Erik had a bad time of it, but he healed enough to help save his realm and ours." There was no mistaking the rebuke. "That is how Jane knew the war fetters."

"And you had only a few days with them before Odin demanded you back again. It will always be that way," Loki pointed out. Thor dropped his eyes, all sorrowful for his lost love again. Nauseating… worse still was the awareness in the back of Loki's mind that Thor's mortal had seen him in a moment of such weakness and recognized it for what it was. _And I owe her a favor as a result._ And before he could talk himself out of it, he observed, "Odin did release you, you know. You could hold him to it."

Thor blinked. "That was you, not Odin."

By the Norns, he was dense. "And unless he intends to declare to all of Asgard that I held the throne with his likeness for seven days, sewing suspicion for the rest of his reign, he'll not be able to go back on my word in his name." Loki leaned back against the corridor wall and opened his palms. "We may not have had an audience, but it's well known that the Allfather gave you leave to depart as reward for your deeds. So if you finish with your business here and go back to Earth, well, how is he to stop you?"

Thor's mouth moved without making a sound for a few seconds, but he didn't seem outraged. Rather, he looked thoughtful. _There._ Loki had shown him the path; whether Thor used it was up to him. Now he needed to go. He'd wasted enough time. Yet it felt as though there were something else important that he should not neglect, some question still unvoiced... he groped around and finally found it. "I thought you no longer had any hope for me."

"I didn't." It was like a fist squeezed his insides, and it galled him to feel that. "I thought I had the way of you and there was no hope left. But as when I saw you die on Svartalfheim, I remembered this is Loki."

"And?"

Now Thor grinned, and it was if the sun came out in the depths of the tunnels. "And if there's one thing Loki Friggason is capable of, it is surprise." He closed the few steps between them while Loki was still trying to make sense of that, and put a hand on his shoulder. "Farewell, Brother. I _will_ miss you."

One squeeze of his hand as if they were simply parting on some expedition, then Thor let go and left the tunnel without looking back. Loki stared after him for a long time, until murmurs in the stones warned him there were guards in the vicinity.

"You're still a witless oaf," he whispered aloud. Then he turned and slipped through the pathway to freedom.

**~Fin~**

_A/N: PLEASE remember to review, dear readers! I need reviews! I love reviews! And to answer the question many of you are probably wondering (why I skipped The Death Scene) the answer is - I tried multiple times to work it in, to cover it in the context of this AU, and it just... didn't... work. Thor wouldn't have been thinking about anything except the immediate problem (that his little bro is DYING again) and Loki would have had no reason to bring it up. As much as I love a good heart-to-heart, I couldn't come up with a way to have that happen and still keep Loki in character. So this is where we ended up. Loki POV in the finale so we could get a glimpse into his head, but Thor is finally starting to get a handle on what makes Little Bro tick._


End file.
